Does sex exist on Mars? šļø
Biotech too is bringing us to 1984, and thereās not much we can do about it.
Recently, 1984 has been brought up on online videos that reference AI and social media companies as the āBig Brothersā used for massive civil surveillance, as well as the drivers of a ānewspeakā which may simply reflect how our addictive technologies atrophy our brains.
In Orwellās book, the nuclear family is also distorted such that children can accuse their parents of āthought-crimeā to get them āvaporizedā (cancelled, cough cough). However, little has been said about āAnti-sexā.
The political party in 1984 arranges marriages such that couples have no desire towards each other. They reframe sex from a private act of love, to the duty of producing obedient citizens.
As I scroll past news about automated IVF factories, embryo selection services, GenZās poor sexual life, and declining fertility rates, I canāt help but think that biotech too is bringing us to a 1984 world, and thereās not much we can do about it.
In a world in which marriages donāt last, young people donāt want to marry, and most people canāt afford the time nor the money to have children, then humans may either be a biologically enhanced breed that symbolize status for the richā¦ or a massified commodity whose only purpose is to sustain the economy, perhaps even on other planets.
So far, humans have spread across the Earth through sexual reproduction. Itās at the core of who we are as living things, what motivates us and even how our culture and economic machines develop, for sex relates to gender and the latter is entangled with power, identity, and cultural norms.
In 1984, it is mentioned that Big Brother exists not as a mortal human does, but as a supposedly immortal embodiment of the Party. Some say this as mirroring capitalism, or the algorithms and platforms (and biotechnologies) that serve it.
In a conversation between Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis (CEO of Deepmind and Isomorphic Labs), the space-tech entrepreneur was presumably appalled to realize that, even if he turns humans into an interplanetary species, AIs with political and cultural views that oppose his own will inevitably follow him all the way to Mars.
No technology is apolitical. Perhaps Musk will IVF his way to colonizing the red planet only with humans descended from him, and AIs that his companies develop. If reproduction is lifeās greatest power, there is no reason our technocrats will not harness it. Brian Armstrong, founder of Coinbase, is already investing in companies in the space.
By the way, the fact that we can grow any biological thing in a dish or a tank, from teeth to tomatoes, means that itās not only human reproduction that is at stake, but all of biology. Since AIs are becoming the essential Chief Growth Officers at these biotech companies, they will undeniably continue to exert control over organisms when they move to Mars.
Back to Earth 2025, biotechnology is turning the act of having kids into a rather commercial transaction. If Iām rich enough, in a couple of decades from now I may be able to buy my first kid using bitcoin through a BCI implant. I could send a sample of my cells, have them turned into stem cells that make an embryo whose genome I design before having it grown in an artificial womb.
As countries continue racing for technological supremacy, inevitably automating every human task possible through robotics and artificial intelligence, machines will become more human-like ā with AI and biotechnology that can quantify every molecule in our bodies to optimize for longevity and productivity, humans will become more machine-like.
Perhaps the misunderstood implication of Julian Huxley and other transhumanistsā vision for the transcendence of the human race, is the literal process of our extinction before the machines, which as Gods we made to our own image, succeed us.
For now, since I donāt want to have us all buy embryos on some social media marketplace through some AR glasses, I urge us to start a counterculture of love.
Biologyās greatest āfeatureā has never been an eye color, fur texture, or voice tone. The most beautiful āfeatureā of life is the intangible and unquantifiable connection between two sentient beings that we call love.
It goes beyond the butterflies in the belly and a twinkling gaze. It could be love towards a friend, a spouse, a pet, a sibling, a father or a mother. Being present with them, seeing them smile and know they are happy, right here, right now is a kind of magic that Big Brothers may try to eradicate, but may never quite be able to engineer.
As we create new biotechnologies, I wish for us to keep this absolutely unscientific point of view in mind, for it will undoubtedly determine how we design, develop, and deploy them as culture.